Chemical fuel cells utilize renewable resources and provide an alternative to burning fossil fuels to generate power. Fuel cells utilize the oxidation/reduction potentials of chemical reactions to produce electrical current.
For example, methanol is a known example of a renewable fuel source used in chemical fuel cells. In a methanol driven fuel cell, methanol and water is circulated past an anode that is separated from a cathode by a membrane that is selectively permeable to protons. The following chemical reaction takes place at the anode. EQU Anode: CH.sub.3 OH+H.sub.2 O.fwdarw.CO.sub.2 +6H.sup.+ +6e.sup.-
The protons generated at the anode pass through the membrane to the cathode side of the fuel cell. The electrons generated at the anode travel to the cathode side of the fuel cell by passing through an external load that connects the anode and cathode. Air or an alternative oxygen source is present at the cathode where the electro-reduction of oxygen occurs resulting in the following chemical reaction. EQU Cathode: 1.5O.sub.2 +6H.sup.+ +6e.sup.-.fwdarw.3H.sub.2 O
One of the important aspects of a chemical fuel cell is the membrane-electrode assembly (MEA). The MEA typically includes a selectively permeable polymer electrolyte membrane bonded between two electrodes, e.g., an anode electrode and a cathode electrode. Usually, both the anode and the cathode each contain a catalyst, often a noble metal. Known processes for fabricating high performance MEAs involve painting, spraying, screen-printing and/or hot-bonding catalyst layers onto the electrolyte membrane and/or the electrodes. These known methods can result in catalyst loading on the membrane and electrodes in the range from about 4 mg/cm.sup.2 to about 12 mg/cm.sup.2. Since noble metals such as platinum and ruthenium are extremely expensive, the catalyst cost can represent a large proportion of a fuel cell's total cost. Therefore, there exists a need for reducing the amount of deposited catalyst, and hence the cost.